I have been very lucky when it comes to flying on wide body trijets. I’m only 15 and so I have not had much chance in my life to fly on such aircraft, but already I have flown on 2. Once from Gatwick to Havana (Cuba) on an AOM French Airlines DC-10 and the second time, I was supposed to be flying from Gatwick to Atlanta on a Delta 777 but this was replaced at the last minute by an MD-11 instead.

I can’t say much about AOM, pour service, bad food and faulty air conditioning, but the Delta flight was much better and I can’t imagine it being any worse than the 777 (apart from not having your own personal TV screen in the back of your seat). The service was great, the plane WASNT falling to bits and the air conditioning DID work.

I am just trying my hardest to keep these memories incase I do not get such a chance again.

I live 2 miles from Stansted and my dad works in one of the maintenance hangars there. It was a Ryanair 737-200 involved and all that I know is the brakes ceased upon landing, probably causing some uncomfort for the passengers as it stopped very quickly. The plane was then stuck on the runway, causing an hour and a halfs worth of flights being diverted ( about 30 or so in total). After the runway was re-opened there was chaos trying to get about 30-40 planes onto the runway to depart, as you can imagine

In reply to the posts about Stansted only having runway, there was massive outrage in the whole area several months ago when the government proposed 3 new runways at Stansted, making it twice the size of Heathrow. Fortunately these plans were dropped, but there are still plans for a second runway which is fine, because it means more planes to see, (possible) long haul routes and a boost for the aviation world and the economy. One thing however that is difficult for Stansted at the moment though is the low cost flights. Although it is great to have hundreds of routes served by Ryanair and Easyjet so easily accesible, it is ‘scaring’ off potential scheduled carriers, due to the fact that Stansted has a huge reputation for the ‘cheap’ flights.